Mend
by Celador5
Summary: A short fic of 2-3 chapters that will fill the gap between the last two scenes with Ross and Demelza in episode 10, series 2. Just how did Ross persuade her to stay? What did they say and what were their thoughts? And after months of no physical contact, how did that go down! Rated for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So, what do you do when the tv programme has great big holes and leaves you wanting more? Well turn to fanfiction, obviously! Set at the end of episode 10, series 2. How did that conversation go after Demelza decided to stay? This is not in the same style as the books. It is introspective and angsty and, strangely, a tad cheesy - maybe. If that's your thing, then enjoy! If not, avoid!**

Chapter 1 – Promise and Hope

"She will never come between us again."

The words hung heavy; the promise they held significant far beyond their collective brevity. A desperate promise, yet given sincerely nonetheless. A promise which must be accepted on faith alone, for Ross Poldark had nothing left to give his wife.

Faith. Yet faith had been broken and had left them empty. A thing that Ross had thrust upon them and had spectacularly failed to mend. And now...? Ross did not know. He only knew that after months he and Demelza had come to it at last- the struggle to comprehend this... _thing_ that was so massive and hideous between them - and it was a strange, cruel kind of relief, edged with panic.

Silence smothered them. Silence. It wasn't really silence. There was the ominous sound of thunder rolling over Nampara, and the rain, incessant and miserable, and the rasp of their own hard breathing. But it felt like silence in the shock and suddenness of the confrontation.

Ross' black eyes blinked slowly and he stared and stared at Demelza, and her eyes glittered fiercely back; the tilt of her head, proud; the line of her mouth, resolute. Now, as on those rare occasions since May when their eyes had met and lingered, a smouldering fire seemed to sear the air between them; a cauldron of black emotions that seethed and boiled, as if his very glance was a flint to the hard steel of hers, paradoxically working together, yet bringing only fiery discord where once it had brought a warming harmony.

She had changed so much in the past months, Ross noticed abruptly. Her lack of appetite making the contours of her face sharper, more beautiful, yet marred by a new bleakness that now seemed part of who she was. Images of her as she had been before flashed through his mind. The softness and mobility of her open features; the rapid flare flushes that spread up from her neck, the flashing vitality of her smile. Ross hated this new hardness, and he hated his part in bringing it about; hated being the instigator of his remarkable young wife's sorrow.

His heart roared in his ears and his stomach was a churning pit of emotions; a physical manifestation of the tumult of the past months. Somewhere in that maelstrom of passion and guilt, of loves and betrayals and jealousies and loss, was hope. Indefatigable hope.

Until that night with Elizabeth, Ross had always assumed that somewhere, in the dark recesses of his mind, was an irrepressible hope of a life with his first love. A thought of a past, long dead, and of an impossible future. It had lurked like a carrion, shadowing his happiness with Demelza; always circling, waiting to pick him off at his most vulnerable. And he had been vulnerable that night. The ninth of May. However reprehensible his actions afterwards, no-one could deny that. Impoverished by failure, grief-stricken by the losses that day at the mine, and that final betrayal that had nudged him into an unstable black, brooding rage.

Oh yes, hope had swooped down on him that night and had swallowed him whole. A black, twisted hope that Elizabeth's letter was meant to provoke him, urge him to action. Hope that his cousin-in-law was finally asking, in the most obtuse of ways, to be rescued from another loveless marriage. Hope that, in lacking the courage to make up her mind, Elizabeth was forcing him to make up his. But the presiding feeling that night as he strode like a storm through Trenwith was hope that he could prevent George Warleggan getting what he wanted.

Hope. A fool's hope.

 _Be careful what you hope for..._

Now, Ross could almost laugh. Almost.

How wrong he had been all these years. It was not hope of Elizabeth, it was hope of an ideal, of perfection, of a dream, and just as transient and unreal. Because of that night, _that night,_ Ross had learnt the difference between loving a shadow and a thought of someone, and the aching fire of loving a person with the full knowledge of their soul. But the cost of that lesson was dearly bought, and just how dearly, Ross was about to find out at last.

He frowned, his dark, drawn brows casting his eyes to utter blackness as he brooded. All this time, all these years, perfection, _his_ perfection, had entered his life in a dog fight and had quietly, unassumingly, ordered his chaotic existence, offering help, companionship, tenderness. Love.

Year after year, hope had warmed his bed, swept his hearth, tended his wounds, borne and cared for his children with no complaint. And hope had a face; hair the shade and unruliness of fire; alabaster perfect skin; a smile like a sunburst; bright, shining eyes the colour of the sea. And hope had a name...

"Demelza..." Ross' resonant voice was a low, scraping whisper. "I promise, she will never...I will never..." His throat closed around the words, his shadowed gaze flickering, dark and unfathomable, to the stacked valise cases beside them, and he was suddenly swamped by fear and a panic he had not known before. "I..."

As he struggled for more words, he and Demelza stood for a long drawn out moment, facing each other, and to any casual observer, nothing had changed from the bitter exchanges of the last weeks and months, but they would not have been more wrong. Everything had changed – the packed bags and cases were testament to that- and yet...

And yet, Demelza's head drooped a little. Her eyes glittered still, but now with unshed tears rather than rage. Inside his chest, Ross' heart swelled and hope flared to life once more – but a hope of something true, something right. Yes, everything had changed and it could never go back, but just how it would go forward depended on Demelza.

He took a step forward, the candles behind him abruptly casting him to shadows, all angles and darkness; her opposite – a slicing shadow to the glow of her face. Another step. Her face; so close. The pale smoothness of her skin, her full lips, softly parted, and her eyes! The luminous sheen of them. Ever since May, her eyes had shrank from him, but now...now, despite herself, they seemed to reach out for him, he was certain, like the creeping rays of the sun beyond cloud.

Ross' hands suddenly trembled and he clasped them to keep them still as he took another slow step forward, and his lungs felt constricted within him. His fists tightened at his sides. His fingers knew what they wanted, and he wanted the same thing: to touch his wife – how long had it been? He wanted to hold her and be held, to breathe her in, come alive against her, discover her again, caress her cheek with tenderness. With love.

Watching him close the space between them, Demelza's brow knitted with uncertainty, the hurt and fury she had been recently accustomed to suddenly giving way to other unexpected emotions; a complex, faltering web of loves and longings and betrayals and pain. She pulled in a ragged breath as hesitation enveloped her and worked at her resolve. The air hitched in her throat and her stomach flipped as she caught the glint of Ross' eyes as black as jet, watching her. The way he looked at her now...it made her feel as if she was coming back from the dead – for him, and that seemed an impossible thing, and an intimate one and she felt the colour rise involuntarily in her cheeks.

As he held his wife's gaze, time seemed to stutter and strobe, seconds swallowed up along the way and Ross felt poised on a single moment, a precipice beneath his feet. His heart raced, thrumming like a moth's wing in his chest, and his eyes widened in hopeful wonder.

And he waited.

 **So, I have the rest of the scene roughly written and if anybody likes this, I will post the rest when I get time to pull it together. Call this a taster if you like ! Thanks for reading. Please review and let me know if it's worth me continuing. x**


	2. Chapter 2 The Claiming

**A/N: Thank you so much to all the reviewers and favouriters (not a word?) of the first chapter** \- **you are the reason this chapter is posted. This is very long, very introspective and very angst-ridden. Be warned - again! I wanted to do justice to the magnitude of their emotions here - after all, Ross didn't just forget to pick up milk on his way home, did he?! My writing style is sometimes...different, and I think it's a bit like marmite...you either like it or hate it! I can't write any other way - sorry! At least I hope some of you will enjoy it!**

 **My Demelza is a 'mash-up of tv show and book. In a bid to make the show's Demelza a feisty, 21st century heroine, I think the writer focussed a little too much on her anger and bitterness and not enough on her utter devastation and loss, as the book did. She is strong, yes, but strength does not preclude fear and despair, or make them less valid or more shameful human emotions...Book lovers may also notice some dialogue from the Graham books. And on that note, I own nothing...**

Chapter 2 - The Claiming

He waited.

Ross sensed he had made a connection with his wife at last, but that it was sapling tender, and for once, for _once,_ in his desperation, his panic, he was mindful not to wither it with his frost. His heart swelled within him, taking in the confusion of emotions that played out across Demelza's face as she struggled with the conflict inside her. But, despite his small breakthrough, this was far from over and he knew it. The air of the parlour seemed to gather around them like a held breath and they both stood there, rooted.

Demelza's eyes, as clear and as tempestuous as the ocean, were luminous in her turmoil; her face cast into relief, the sharpness of cheekbones and generousness of lips, exaggerated. She was unpolished and wild and fierce. And she had been his...she had been _his_. His gaze, nocturnal-black, became unusually unguarded and it shone with the open wanting in them.

But Demelza could not see it; he was all silhouette to her, and staring into the darkness of his face she sought for the confirmation, the truth, of his words. She felt the sting of tears and she swallowed hard in an attempt to fight back the swell in her throat. Except for Julia, Demelza rarely gave in to tears. Tears, her father had often told her when she was young, were weakness, andd she had quickly learnt to stifle her crying rather than suffer the extra beating it won her. There had been no room for softness and sentiment in her young life, and that Demelza gave it so freely in adulthood was no small wonder.

But she was suddenly weary, tired. So very tired of the fight; with her husband, with George and Elizabeth. With herself. She had no strength left to stop the well that gathered in her throat, and if the dam burst, the storm outside would not be the only thing to shake Nampara. Desperate not to succumb, she pulled in a breath, but the air...the air, it seemed to her oppressive and warm despite the open door and the rain outside. It was like a presence between them - and then not as Ross stepped closer, his features catching the glow of a candle at last as he moved.

It was in his eyes, glittering dark, and in his waiting – he was waiting, she knew – that Demelza saw her husband again, finally: the man she had married with all his strength and grace and loneliness and longing.

And hope.

Hesitation.

They both felt the pull gather between them and around them. Still, Demelza did not move. In the dim light Ross' eyes dilated to utter blackness and were wide as he watched her, as if he wanted to take more of her into himself, like light through a window. He wanted to drown himself in her and forget himself, his idiocy, there. She was his peace and gentleness; she was love and the possibility of a future – precarious but possible.

The radiance of her eyes kindled something in him that made him acutely and suddenly aware that he had passed all his life before in a haze of half-living, half-feeling. For years he had thought, deep down he had thought, that, no matter how deeply he loved his wife, there was something in Elizabeth that he needed and that Demelza lacked. The ninth of May had shown him how wrong he was, the confirmation of a long cherished feeling had simply...not been there. In the shock of it, the turmoil, Ross had walked for months in a daze of confusion, as if unable to admit the ten years of emotional energy wasted on his folly, and the pain that the act of such revelation had brought to the one who truly held his heart. His whole heart.

Knowing this as he did now, the impossibility of good-bye overwhelmed Ross and, helpless, fearful, faltering, he tried to forge the words, to explain.

"I want you to know that Elizabeth means nothing to me, nothing. I realise that now..." he began.

"Don't say such things, Ross," Demelza interjected with a sharp shake of her head and an anguished whisper. Again a look of confusion creased her brow and she pursed her lips to stop them trembling, her head dropping abruptly so that she stared desolately at his boots. "I want to believe you..." her voice was soft, childlike now; a curling whisper that was barely audible. "I...I think that I do want that now. But when you say such things about your feeling for... for her, I cannot believe 'tis true."

"It _is_ true!" And his fearfulness came out over harsh. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes tight shut, his jaw clenching convulsively as he struggled to bank down the despair that threatened to engulf him. "It _is_ true," he repeated softly, emphatically, raising his eyes once more to meet hers and she regarded him intently as he continued:

"The pain you think you see in me at her marriage to George? It is not pain at a wound to my own heart, but rather pain at the wound, the betrayal, to my family. You know, dear God, you know Demelza, of my loathing for George, but do you forget Francis' hatred for everything Warleggan before he died? That... _man_ now lives in our ancestral home; he is bringing up Francis' son. Does that not give _you_ pain?" He demanded, knowing her keen sense of fairness and justice.

"Of course it do," she answered, her eyebrows raised suddenly. "But surely 'tis more 'n that for you. Elizabeth..."

"Arghh! Elizabeth!" And Ross almost growled her name with simmering frustration, and Demelza watched the rhythmic jump of his jugular at his throat. Once more, mindful of the peril, he took a deep breath to steady himself before he tried again.

"D'you know, Demelza," he said quietly, "how it is when a person has wanted something always and never had it? Its true value is unknown, has never been evaluated– it may be everything or nothing." Ross drew in another long, ragged breath, his adrenalin-fuelled heart beating wildly, still. "What I...did, in May, it taught me that Elizabeth _does_ mean nothing to me. For that reason only - if it could have only happened in a vacuum, without hurt to anyone- I should not have regretted it, for it means that I can live my life, that I can love, without this...this..." and his black eyes roved, struggling for the words, " ...this insidious _thing,_ this beast, casting its shadow over me; over us."

Again he was filled with the sight of her as she stood, uncertain, and he felt new life course suddenly through him, mocking him, it seemed, at the very moment his future with Demelza hung in the balance. Tendrils of sensation and emotion that he had not known with such intensity before; roots branching past every trapdoor and through any number of his dark levels, and he was changed by it – made fuller, brighter; the shadow of Elizabeth, gone. Outshone.

He took a step towards her, closing the space between them – negative, pointless, space.

"Your heart has always seen the truth in me, Demelza. Can it not see it now? Demelza..." His voice was no longer fearful, but low and ardent and defeated, and it caressed her name. Ross reached out very slowly, and with one long finger light against her cheek, he hooked a loose wisp of her unruly hair and pushed it behind her ear. The tiny touch sparked and blazed, but it was nothing to the fuller fire when he brought the whole of his palm against her cheek, and he knew that she felt it too.

Demelza bit down on her lip, uncertainty swamping her. The feel of his palm on her hot cheek ... she felt the embers she thought had died, but there was something else also. Images, unbidden, unwanted, flew into her mind: the same cool hand caressing so tenderly, but another face, another woman. And oh, _oh,_ it ached. She clutched at her stomach as if she could feel it there like a physical blow . How cruel was her treacherous, disobedient mind. Now, now that she so wanted ...she so wanted...But it was there, _she_ was there, still.

Elizabeth.

Elizabeth. Elizabeth's life had been an abstraction to Demelza, given over as it was to position and duty and material considerations. She hadn't been able to conceptualize its reality until she saw her with George tonight, when she had gone to Trenwith to warn them. Demelza had seen the victory in Elizabeth's face when George had informed Ross's wife that he had left for France. It had struck her then: Elizabeth was a truly selfish creature, her actions driven by her own needs, and, at times, those of her son.

Even those early kindnesses that the mistress of Trenwith bestowed on her, Demelza now suspected to be attempts to ingratiate herself with Ross; ensuring that in his new-found happiness with his wife, he did not forget his first love in all her perfection. Her unspoilt, untried, perfection; unsullied as it was by living a life together with all its toils and hardships; with all its mundane drudgery of tramping through the muck of the farm and fields; with its petty rows and rifts; its calloused hands and aching feet; with its unspeakable grief and losses.

How _would_ Elizabeth have coped with sharing Ross' life with him? How far would she have fallen? How far _had_ she fallen in showing her true self in May? Is that what Ross meant? Yet if Elizabeth had been shown to be spitefully manipulative, then Ross had been shown to be a fool, and just as selfish. But Demelza was not so selfish, could never be so; it was against her nature, as it also was to hate with any longevity or depth of passion. Against her nature to let bitterness and hurt curdle and fester, souring the sweetness of love and life beyond redemption. It had been so with the loss of Julia, and it was so now.

Love, she suddenly realised in a moment of clarity, _her_ love for Ross, was inescapable. It was simple, yet total, like hunger. To try to never love him was like never eating again whilst still foolishly expecting to live. She did not want to drift through the rest of her life in a kind of half-existence, observing events as if behind glass – present but not fully taking part because she was not wholly there; because a part of her was missing.

At that moment, Ross's hand fell from her face, leaving coldness in its wake. Again Demelza thought of those fingers touching another's flesh, and she was almost overcome, but she pushed the image aside with a new, emerging, very different resolve to the one she had started the evening with.

Yes, her mind would always remember, and her gut too, but her heart in that moment could deny its true self no longer. Yes, her heart knew the truth in him, and her heart was never wrong, and it was filled only with his expectant face – his hair, black and wild, the convulsive clench of his unshaven jaw, the guttering light playing across his angular features and the fullness of his mouth. Judas, he was beautiful, she thought. And she also thought, oh. _Oh._

"Demelza," Ross murmured again, breaking her thoughts. Oblivious to this new turmoil within her, he watched her carefully. Their marriage had been fractured, the break too painful to prod and poke with any directness these past months; lord knows, he had tried nonetheless and his attempts had been woeful. Woeful.

Even if he had been less clumsy, more articulate, it would have made little difference until now. There had been no flexibility; the gulf of hurt too fresh and wide to bend and knit back together. But now... ? Things would be different, they would bear the scars, but surely, _surely,_ they could mend. Surely he had said enough...

Surely. Yet there _was_ one more thing.

His mouth went suddenly dry and he swallowed as he broached a subject he had tried not to dwell on overmuch, and even now he couldn't come to it directly.

"I also want you to know how deeply sorry I am that I have been the cause of any pain to you. You were – are- so undeserving of any harm. And... and...after you told me about ..." - now for it - "McNeil, my _own_ feeling, my jealousy, it gave me a greater understanding of how you must have felt...all these months. I want you to know that. If you had gone off with McNeil, I should have had only myself to blame."

If Ross's eyes had darkened at his mention of the soldier's name, then Demelza's face went bone-white. Her memories of that night of the Bodrugan ball were like knives, and it pained her to have them unwittingly turned against her. She took a faltering step backwards and shivered involuntarily at how narrow was her escape, and how deep was her naivety, how shameful her intent.

"You're cold," Ross stated, not knowing the barb of self-loathing he had struck. "At least let us agree to shut the door on this miserable night," he persisted. She had dropped her gaze and he inclined his head in an effort to read her face." Demelza...?"

"I 'm not sure...I want to... to..." but Demelza trailed off weakly. Her head span. Words wouldn't seem to settle into sense as her mind made one last desperate pitch for logic against her heart.

"Come, Demelza, should we not talk properly first, if...if you are to leave me?" His voice was more gentle than she could have believed possible, and she raised her gaze sharply to meet his again and she percieved, despite his words, that Ross' eyes shone with a hopeful, piercing scrutiny, almost unbearable to hold. But she met his gaze unwaveringly, and there was no more hate in the blue-greenness of it – uncertainty still, but no hate. Seeing it, and taking it as a sign, Ross turned abruptly and strode to the door, shutting it quietly, the sound of the lashing rain becoming muted.

He returned to where she stood and saw with jolt of shock that silent tears slid down her face. Her lip quivered in the effort of control, but the stream of salty wetness gathered and pooled under her chin. She made no sound, her features still impossibly composed, but that only made her lostness seem worse to him.

Ross's features shifted from wide-eyed shock to a sadness that threatened to overwhelm him with its force. Her loveliness, he thought, amid her sorrow would pierce his heart. He wanted to tell her it would be alright, but that was not a promise that was his to make anymore – that remit rested with her alone now. She stared blinking at Ross and his stomach clenched and he instinctively reached out to her. But that too was a privilege he had lost, and her arm shot out reflexively to rebuff him, her body still trying to do what her heart no longer could – deny the embrace, deny him.

"Don't," she whispered sharply. "You don't get to do that. " Her voice faltered on the last word, giving way to more stinging tears, and his face looked heartsick and stricken.

The collision of their arms had caught at Demelza's bandaged wrist and she sucked in a breath of pain, cradling it with her other arm, as a sharp throb began to pulse.

"You don't get...to ...to.." she stammered. "Oh!" Spinning suddenly and turning from him, she stepped towards the window and stared with sightless eyes at the rain marring the windowpane.

Since May, Demelza had only cried once, on her long, shameful walk across the Dark Cliffs back from Werry House. Her pride had not let Ross see her utter misery at his betrayal. She was a miner's daughter, dragged and beaten up to adulthood by an unloving father. Yet she had survived with the purity of her spirit intact, and she could not, would not, stomach Ross – this man who had raised her up to be so much more than what she was born into – look at her with pity. She had shown him her anger, her disappointment. Oh yes, of that there had been no end. But her devastation...?

No.

 _That_ pain, _that_ hurt, she had carefully shut in a dark room of her mind, closing the door tight and not daring to open it for fear of what it might unleash.

It occurred to Demelza then, as she watched the rain trace rivulets down her reflection in the glass, that that place in her mind, the dark, was where she'd also kept all her happiness, bundled up and stowed away, like gear she'd never need again, except now she found she might, and she was fumbling around in the blackness to find it; grappling with the despair that was hid there as well as the joy. Hopelessly, she realised that the one could not be freed without the other demanding its due.

Ross's hands trembled and he clasped them and stepped slowly towards his wife, focussing on the fiery curls of her hair as she stood, back to him and silent once more. She had her arms wrapped around herself now, her hands hidden, and her head was tilted and hunched into her shoulder like a wounded bird, and she was...desolation.

An ache swelled in Ross. He wanted to fold her in his arms, but he couldn't, daren't, touch her again, not even in her anguish. And he couldn't bear it. He couldn't bear it.

But then, the tightness coiled in Demelza finally broke, the silent tears replaced by an outpouring of grief as she opened the door to that dark room at last; a sobbing that racked her, seized her, shook her.

Ross had only ever seen his wife this vulnerable once before – when they had lost Julia. And yet this seemed worse to him, _worse,_ for _he_ was the cause of her suffering and he felt his heart twist within him.

She began to shake. Pent emotions - the neglect and betrayal of the last months, the danger and confrontations of this very night at Trenwith - they broke over her like a tidal wave, the tears falling hot and fast and she covered her face awkwardly with her injured hand. The throbbing pain, both that in her wrist and her heart, sent her breathing off kilter and it became rapid and shallow – intermittent as she struggled to pull in air between her gasping sobs.

She staggered backwards, light-headed, the convulsions sending tremors through her slight frame.

And Ross caught her. Of course, _of course,_ he caught her; stopped her falling. Enforced touch. He placed strong, gentle hands on her shoulders and she sank into their support, wanting and needing. She did not recoil, and some distant part of him marvelled at that.

"Demelza..." he murmured softly. "Take a deep breath. Hold it."

She tried to obey, the shivering sending her teeth on edge and causing her stomach to clench, threatening to revolt. As she quietened, Ross prised her wounded arm away from the curve of her waist and he supported her weight, her back to his chest. The bandaged wrist, sticky and dark from fresh blood, lay over his upturned forearm, her elbow resting in the crook of his.

Careful, he unwrapped the bloodied binding with his free hand and she acquiesced to the ministration like a listless child. When he saw the burnt mess of scorched skin and flesh beneath, his indrawn breath was a hiss of fury and his fingers gripped hers that were curled limply in his palm.

"I should have shot him," he choked out from between clenched teeth, appalled. His mouth brushed the top of her head and he closed his eyes, pulling in a shuddering breath to calm himself. Now was not the time for that; _that_ could come later.

"Look at me, Demelza." And his voice was tender command, though he dreaded looking into her face and seeing what he might find there. But Demelza just stood there, leaning into him but shivering still and unmoving, her head hunched in its fixed position and her slender fingers still resting in his.

Ross gently moved his arm away and hers fell lifelessly to her side. Then, he gripped her shoulders again and turned her around. He was so careful with her, like she was made of glass, and she let herself be moved to face him.

He looked down at her and was caught by the sight of her long lashes, dusky and trembling against the blue-tinged flesh around her eyes.

She was so bleak. And so beautiful. And Ross' arms ached for the embrace that he still denied them, waiting for her. Still.

Her face was blotchy and wet and impulsively Ross smoothed her hair from her face, letting it run through his fingers. His thumb lingered lightly on her cheek, caressing. The action hauled him back to that moment of first touch, the day of Jim Carter's trial, when an urgent desire had gripped him. But that was long, long ago. Now, he knew her completely, had shared so much with her. Now he loved her. The love of his life. He had known it when he had almost lost her along with Julia. How could he have forgotten? How could he have been so stupid?

His hand then moved to rest on her back and she blinked up at him, her green eyes wet and wide and seeking. Her breathing had steadied and the shivering came now in sporadic bursts; Ross' presence, his solidity and strength calming Demelza in a way she had never expected it to again.

Another tentative hand at her back and she let herself be drawn to him. Ross's heart beat against her cheek and his arms came around to embrace her and she did not resist. And he held her. He _held_ her. His long fingers moved down the length of her hair, again and again, soothing until he felt the last shudders fade and release their grip, and he murmured over and over, like a mantra he clung to, like he was atoning for all the times he had not told her in the past:

"I am sorry. So, so sorry...So sorry. My dear, my very dear Demelza. My fine, my loyal, my very sweet, my precious Demelza. I am so sorry..."

He drew back then and looked down into her face, his own features clouded with emotion and his black eyes glittering with tears now too. "I love you, Demelza. Demelza..." His voice was low, soft, and he dipped his head to the pale oval of her upturned face and carefully set his lips against her brow, then her wet cheek, then, when she did not tense at the charged intimacy, he breathed her name against the curve of her mouth.

"Demelza...?" His said, the word cracking with a desperate pleading.

When he withdrew, his black eyes searched for hers, looking for the answer his kisses had asked, but she held her face to his chest once more. Demelza's heart finally muscled her wearied mind into submission then, and it was as if a voice within her whispered " _Enough of this; stop pretending."_

So, with a shudder, she did.

He hooked a finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, and he thought his heart would break as she looked at him and looked at him, pouring herself out through her extraordinary eyes – for him.

And then, she smiled through her weeping. She _smiled_. It wasn't the radiant, dimpled-cheeked unfurling - not the sunburst, not yet, that smile for him. This smile was small and sudden, shy and unsure. Dazzling nonetheless, and it more than answered his question, and Ross felt as if the air was pushed from his chest, and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe.

He bent his head once more, half-hesitant still , and he kissed her lips. Smooth as inevitability, his mouth brushed hers; a gliding together. A touch, like a whisper – a gentle, gentle grazing of his full lower lip across both of hers, and Ross tasted her, sweet and warm and trembling, and he was moved by the aching familiarity of her mouth beneath his. Then, his heart slammed into his chest as his wife unmistakeably leaned into his touch, and he caught her suddenly tight against him, a sudden unspooling as all restraints gave way. And that was all it took.

Magnets collide and quickly align.

They were urgent, clumsy, showering kisses. Lips landing where they would – brow, cheek, neck- again and again, no spot neglected . Lashes wet with her tears, and his too; salt-kissed lips to lips. They were overwhelmed with relief. After all that they had been through, relief, and thanks that they had come to this moment.

Breathless, Ross drew back, resting his forehead against Demelza's, the tips of their noses touching, and he took her face in his hands, fingers lightly skimming her jaw and ear, the unreality of touching her after so long an absence filling him with wonder and gratitude. She was as warm as summer, as wild as the sea, and as giving as new-tilled earth.

And she was his.

"I will never hurt you like that again," he whispered hoarsely . Demelza could taste the headiness of liquor on his breath as it sent tendrils of her hair dancing across her cheek, but she did not doubt the fierce conviction or the sobriety of his promise.

"No, you will not," Demelza responded with the same quiet ferocity, and there was no smile now, but she sought his mouth, and she claimed him. And he kissed her, his body responding to the heat of her, the kindling fire, and their lips and breath danced between them with relief once more. And hunger.

He was hers, she knew, and a sigh went through her like a loosening, and Ross felt it as he kissed her neck, burying his head in hair, eyes shut, drinking in the remembered fragrance of it. He tightened his arms around her, cradling her, breathing in her nearness, and she brought her good arm to wrap around his waist and they clung to each other.

They stood like that for a while, content in their togetherness and new understanding and they were quiet. But their blood and nerves and hearts were not; they were violently alive, rushing and dancing and aching and ... _burning_ in the thrill of rediscovery.

It was Demelza who untangled herself at last, roused after who knew how long, by a gust of wind that rattled the windows. She looked up at him, holding his black, burning eyes carefully as she brought her uninjured hand to slide under the fabric at his chest, laying her palm to rest against his heart, and the very touch of her cool fingers seemed to speak to him:

 _I love you. I want you, I claim you, at the end of all this. Our future, peace. And you..._

 **TBC... Again, if the desire is out there, I will post a final chapter that details the full reconciliation between husband and wife...*winks* (No lemons though!) Please, please review...**


	3. Chapter 3 The Sunburst

**So, here is the final chapter! Sorry for the delay - it's rather long, as you'll see! Apologies for that! It's angsty, yet fluffy, and there are still a couple of false starts before the full reconciliation - well, I couldn't just have them jump straight into bed! I hope it's worth the wait. It does describe a scene of love-making, but there is no explicit, graphic language used - all suggestive, so I've left the rating, but be warned if that's not your thing. I've used some of Graham's text - again, I own nothing. Without further ado...enjoy!**

Chapter 3 – The Sunburst

 _I love you. I want you. I claim you, at the end of all this. Our future, peace. And you..._

In the candlelit parlour of Nampara, in the peace, like the calm after the storm, they stood, and Demelza was reeling, still. How differently the day had ended to how it had begun. How her resolve had turned on its head; but her feeling for Ross – her husband ... it was the impossible, the wonderful, the terrible. It was all of these, and more, and it had flayed open her chest.

"Yes, I 've always known; my heart has always been drawn to you, Ross, however much I might 'ave wished it otherwise at times. " Demelza's lips softly parted, murmured, whispered, an admission to herself as well as to him.

And, staring down at his wife, Ross could not help but notice how her quiet, lilting voice now seemed to cherish his name. _Cherish_ it. Cherish it in a way that Elizabeth would not have known how to, would not have been capable of, and again the naivety of his youthful self mocked him.

"And I to you," he responded to her honesty, letting his fingertips brush her cheek as he spoke. Her face was shy and shining and she looked young and slightly tremulous still and it brought the child she had been back to Ross's mind. Years ago now, with a surge of pity and one impetuous decision to champion a street waif and her dog, Demelza, with all her improbable incongruities – her fierce tenderness, her fragile strength, her unschooled intellect – had inexorably become part of Ross's story, and always would be.

His life since the ninth of May, it had felt like a slow tearing. A page pulled in two, so that one half made no sense without the other. However tempestuous life sometimes was together, Ross knew with certainty now that alone, without each other, he and Demelza were like one half of that torn page – unreadable. Pointless.

As he pondered, thoughts of their past life together flitting through his mind, his fingers still on her face tracing the soft curve of her mouth, Demelza suddenly winced in discomfort. Her lips pulled in a grimace beneath his touch and her face paled, blanching the colour her husband's kisses had kindled in her minutes before.

"My love?" He enquired anxiously, his hand dropping to her shoulder and gripping her as she swayed slightly as she stood there.

"Oh, 'tis nothin'," Demelza said in a light tone and a flippant shake of her head, turning her face from him and trying to stifle the pain she was sure was plainly written there. But Ross's hands still steadied her, holding her firmly in a way she knew was not to be dismissed.

In truth, Demelza did not want to spoil this reconciliation by riling her husband's volatile wrath. She had been so ready to leave him earlier; so determined not to carry on in that terrible way that had become almost commonplace between them. But now...

Demelza's heart was almost childlike in its generosity and simplicity. Had always been so. She, who had endured Ross's neglect, his wantonness, his risk taking, his undisguised attachment to another woman, had stood tonight and listened to her husband's words – heartfelt at last – and had accepted them as truth. Her forgiveness, when given, was like her love and loyalty – it was unconditional. So she gave it now, and so she also found herself adverse to bringing George and the mishaps of the day into her new-found, unlooked for contentment.

She tried to gently free herself from Ross, squirming in his grip."I'll make us a brew of tea, and see what I can scrape from the pantry for supper, " Demelza said as lightly as she could, avoiding his brooding gaze that she felt scald her cheek nonetheless. "I'm afraid there's nothin' warmin' for supper. I 'ad no thought for bakin' earlier, what with...everythin'..." she faltered, falling abruptly limp beneath his insistent hands.

"Oh, Ross," she muttered feebly at last, hanging her head and letting her long hair fall in front of her face. "'Tis just my arm. 'Tis nothin' really. It's been throbbin' somethin' fierce since you took the binding off, that's all."

Despite his wife's efforts at evasion, Ross caught the fresh glitter of unshed tears on her lashes and realised that her discomfort must be great for it to manifest in such a way. In all the years he had known her, Ross could never recall Demelza even tying up a wound or cut before.

"Come, I am sorry," he said gently, "I undid all your work and then woefully neglected my patient. " He reached down into her face and kissed her. "I was somewhat distracted," he added, the corner of his mouth pulling upwards in a soft smile which she tried to return. Then, he slid an arm around her waist and guided her to the settle by the fire.

"Really, Ross; 'tis a fuss over nothin'," Demelza said, annoyed that her own discomfort was impinging on the mood. She tried to pull him down with her as he insistently seated her on the cushions of the hard bench. She frowned up at him. "I've never had no-one tend to a scratch o' mine before - let me see to it. Tint fittin' for you to..."

"Sit," he quietly ordered, interrupting her. "Let me tend to this one thing. Lord knows I've neglected you enough in the past, and you have not let me near you these past months. So please, humour me? I have more experience of such injuries than you anyway," he concluded and Demelza knew he would brook no argument. She sighed and nodded resignedly and her husband began to busy himself around the room, pouring two glasses of brandy, a dish of water from the kettle, stoking the fire and, finally, pulling some clean, folded strips of linen from a drawer which he knew Demelza kept there should he or Jeremy get into a scrape.

As he moved around the parlour, assuming responsibility for her needs, his dark eyes flitted to Demelza's as if seeking reassurance that she was still there; the packed cases by the wall a mute, inanimate reminder of how close he had come to losing her. Each time his gaze pulled reluctantly away from hers to attend to the brandy or water or cloths, it flickered infinitesimally to the rawness of her wrist, his jaw tightening convulsively as it did so.

And Demelza watched him warily as he worked, his calmness making her feel uneasy. She glanced down appraisingly at the injured arm that lay in her lap, and then back up at Ross as he pulled a side table in front of the settle, laying the gathered items on it.

Her eyes narrowed into blue-green slits of caution as the fingers of her other hand plucked nervously at the skirt of her dress. How easily she had picked back up the thread of concern for the easy turning of her husband's moods, though, in truth, she had never lost it. And oh, how she didn't want his mood to turn just yet – her skin prickled with the ghost of his lips –no, not yet.

Presently, Ross sat down close beside her and picked up her arm, turning it and examining it with a practised eye in the firelight. Demelza noticed the twitch that tightened his jaw, the frown that darkened his eyes and the grim line of his mouth and she swallowed hard.

Yes, considering what Prudie had reported after they had returned to Nampara earlier, Ross was far, far too calm.

Following their return from Trenwith, her husband had been tending to Darkie, Jud having slunk off somewhere with a pilfered flagon of ale, when Prudie had scurried into the bedroom as Demelza began to pack the last of her things. Not having dared to approach her master, and only having got a grunt of explanation from her husband, the flustered servant had sought details of the affray at Trenwith from the mistress of Nampara.

Initially, Demelza had given Prudie a lash of her tongue for telling Ross about the shooting, although there had not been much ire in the chastisement as Demelza was secretly thankful that Ross had come to her aid at Trenwith when he had. Lord knows, she was sure that George would have taken almost as much delight in killing her as he would have Jud Paynter. Vexed at the admonishment, but not at all contrite about disobeying her mistress's orders, Prudie had gone on to tell Demelza about just how Ross had come to ride off to Trenwith in a murderous rage for the second time in just over six months...

* * *

" _Scared me half to death, he did, comin' in all unexpected while I was about me chores an all," Prudie whined. Demelza pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "'Tis true!" The servant retorted to the unspoken scepticism of her work ethic before continuing in a belligerent tone. "An' me at me wits end wi' worry for that good-for-nothin' worm o' mine! Ay, and fur thee 'an all, maid, after what they already done t' thee! Not that anyone cares fur ol' Prudie in return, mind," she sniffed._

 _Despite her own misery, Demelza could not help herself, and she soothed the older woman, easing away her feigned offense with a kind word and sympathetic smile. Sufficiently mollified, Prudie had continued her tale with relish._

"' _Where was all o' Sawle?' said master, standin' there at the door like the grim reaper. ''Ridden through village an' not a sight o' no-one. And where was the mistress? 'Tis late for her to be out-a-doors.'_

 _So I told 'im - they all gone to give that Warleggan what for, with 'is fences an' all, and shootin' willy-nilly at gentle ladies doin' nothin' but mindin' their own bus'ness."_

" _Oh, Prudie," Demelza said with a resignedly despairing sigh. "You do 'ave a way wi' words, I 'ave t' give ee that."_

" _There's no way to tell it but straight, 'specially when lives are in mortal danger! So, anyways, as I was sayin' –_

 _'Shootin' at gentle folk?' master says. 'Not even George's lackeys would dare...'_

 _Oh, they would, said I. There's some gentle folk that George don't hold as bein' as gentle as others – like them that were miner's daughters once-upon-a-time..."_

" _Oh, Prudie..." Demelza groaned again before plopping down on the bed and pitching forwards, her head in her hand and raking the curls of her hair, dishevelling them._

" _Oh, mistress!" Prudie exclaimed, ignoring Demelza's despair. "In all the years I knowd 'im, I ain't never seen 'im so angry. Never. Lord, ee raged at me ee did, as if it were I that shot ee! Poor Prudie cowerin' in a corner while ee strode round the parlour like a cloud o' thunder! Thumpin' the table and scatterin' the chairs! Damn near broke the door off its hinges when ee went out, sayin' he'd kill George for what he'd done t' thee. Saddled Darkie an' went off like a bolt o' lightin'. All blackness 'n' fury, ee was! I didna hold much hope for young Warleggan, I must say. 'Tis a rare miracle that no-one 'as been killed tonight!"_

 _Listening, Demelza did not doubt the tale Prudie told, and she could not say that she was not in some way flattered by the strength of care that she still clearly evoked in Ross._

 _"Yes, a rare miracle," Demelza muttered darkly, realising the great and uncharacteristic restraint and composure Ross had mastered in his confrontation with George. She looked then at the carpet bag next to her on the bed. Prudie followed her glance and realisation began to dawn at last at the activity she had interrupted her mistress in._

" _Oh, maid," the old servant murmured, suddenly sitting down heavily on the bed next to Demelza. "Surely tas not come to that? Ee do still love thee fiercely y' know. More'n ee ever loved that sickly lookin', limp lily of a wench. She be no good for 'im. For such a sharp lad, it did take 'im a sweet long time to for penny t' drop though, I'll give thee that."_

 _Prudie took Demelza's hand in her hers and squeezed her slender fingers." I'll lay me life on it that ee won't do such a thing again. Learnt 'is lesson the 'ard way, ee has. Like a lost puppy ee been these past months."Prudie tilted her head to see past Demelza's curtain of hair as she stared at the floor. "Y'know, I don't blame ee, maid. No one do."_

 _Demelza turned her head and met Prudie's eyes which were soft with a rare sympathy. "For punishing him all these months?" the younger woman asked._

" _No maid - that ee deserved, and more. No, I don't blame ee for lovin' 'im."_

 _Demelza felt a jolt go through her at the unexpectedness of it and startled tears gathered on her lashes._ _"I don't...not any longer- "she began before the words choked off. No more self deceit - not today; not any more._

 _"D' you think I don't know ee at all? D'you think I don't know either o' thee?" Prudie asked quietly._

" _Oh Prudie!" Demelza exclaimed as a dry sob caught in her throat. "I don't think I know myself anymore..."_

* * *

"Here, drink this first," Ross ordered holding out one of the glasses of brandy and breaking the thread of Demelza's recollections as he began to bathe the wound. Yes, just a while earlier Demelza's world was still turned on its head. She was seriously considering leaving the man who had treated her with the most worth in her life - had bestowed on her the most happiness - to return to the one who had shown her the most cruelty and had brought the most misery. Despite the proud bravado of her words to Ross as she had snapped shut the carpet bag on the last of her hastily packed possessions, Demelza had been utterly bereft and miserable. How swiftly the tide had turned on this rain-drenched night. How greatly Demelza wanted to feel the embrace of her husband's arms again, yet he was now intent on other things.

Ross washed away the dried blood on his wife's arm, causing fresh to well fast in its wake and Demelza clenched her teeth against the sting.

"Truly, 'tis just a scratch, Ross," Demelza commented as nonchalantly as she could, but her wince at his ministrations betrayed her. "Give me the linen and I can see to it myself." She tried to take the strips of material from him, but he stayed her hand as she reached out.

"Just a scratch!" he exclaimed incredulously, staring at her wide-eyed.

There. The mood was slipping, she could feel it.

"Dear God, Demelza, d'you think me blind? I've served in battle and I know of no soldier that would call that 'just a scratch'! I think the bullet _did_ nick you.."

"Nay, Ross," she interjected hastily. "Twas just a scorchin' from the shot, and maybe a grazin' from the splintered fence post," she conceded sullenly.

Her husband ignored her and worked on, cleaning the wound until he was satisfied, needling out some small splinters that Demelza had missed in her distress and haste earlier. She bit her lip and bore the discomfort silently, mindful not to fuel his anger further with her pain.

When he was done, Ross bound the cleaned wound tightly, then he picked up the other glass and took a gulp of brandy, grimacing as he swallowed. Ross had felt the bite of George's blows when their contempt and enmity had over spilled into physical aggression, but Demelza suffering harm on Warleggan orders had pulled hard on the moorings of Ross's self control. It had only been his greater need to diffuse the riotous situation earlier, that and his desperation to reconcile with his wife, that had stopped him from putting a bullet into George and Harry for what they had done.

Ross sat back, the fire behind him, and he considered his wife intently and he was quiet and still for a few minutes. She watched him carefully in return as she sipped her brandy, and she was unable to read the glittering blackness of his eyes in the half-light.

He reached forward suddenly and smoothed away a frown on her brow that she was unaware of.

"And you stood between a gun and the folk of Sawle just hours after feeling the bite of a bullet; the very man who fired at you standing there and ready to finish what he'd begun." His voice was low, soft and edged with a rawness of emotion that made the words sound like something being dragged across the ground. "I don't know what to say; so much loyalty, so much courage..." Ross murmured, a new wonder gripping him and his eyes were lit with admiration.

"Nay, Ross," she responded quietly to his incredulity, shaking her head and lowering her eyes, abashed. "No courage. I thought my heart would burst my chest I was that scared."

He realised suddenly in that moment that he cared for this slender woman from Illugan, his young wife, more than anyone in his whole life, past or present. There was nothing illusory about his love for the oddly courageous and loyal girl; his feelings were firmly grounded in in the bleak reality of dirt and sweat and blood. And so his hands, almost with a will of their own, reached out and caught hold of hers and he pulled her to him, holding her against him, her bright head under the curve of his chin.

Ross closed his eyes and exhaled a long breath. All that he didn't deserve, and all that he thought he would never have again, was in that moment and nothing more. The simplicity of Demelza in his arms, the perfect silken-smoothness of her hair against the coarseness of his unshaven throat, and everything else fell away.  
They were like that for a while, content; two tired people, sitting in the flickering dark. He pulled her closer and she placed her head lower, against his chest, and it felt like home to have her melt against him and rest like this.

After a while he gently released her and pulled back and she tilted her head so that her pale face was upturned to his. And then her fingertips were on his lips, so soft by comparison to his unshaven jaw. Demelza felt them tremble and curl upwards under her skin and a shy light shone in her face as he held her gaze and saw the yearning that met his own in a deep place.

Her hair hung loose down her back, pinned only for convenience sake off her face. It wasn't neat. The soft hairs at her temples had all come unbound and tufted out like down. Longer loose strands of red silk were tucked behind her ears, all except one stray that lay curved against her cheek. He suddenly felt, again in his fingers, the desire to brush back the wayward curl. To brush it back and linger, and feel the warmth of her skin, rediscovered. The pain of longing felt like a hole then, unfurling in the centre of his chest, filling that small part of him that he had always withheld for the hope of Elizabeth...

...Now, now there was only Demelza.

Demelza. There was nothing in the world Ross wanted more than to start at the beginning and fall in love with her all over again, free from the regrets and shadow of the past. At this moment he felt as though the tilt of that world was trying to tip him forwards, to help him, at last: to be nearer to her - nearer and touching- as though that were the only state of rest, and every other action and movement were geared to achieving it. A pull.

"Are you scared now?" Ross asked, his deep voice resonating through his chest and reverberating against her soft palm that lay there.

"No," she answered, the softness of her voice, the motionless of her body giving lie to the rushing she felt within. "George and his henchmen don't scare me anymore, but...but..."

His face became suddenly sombre as his lips brushed the hair at her temple. "I do," he stated levelly.

Her heart quickened at the unexpected turn of conversation. "Yes. No... not you, it's more my...my.." Demelza's brow creased as she sought to explain emotions she did not fully understand. Her quiet voice was a whisper curling up to him, uncertain, unsure as the confusion of words spilt from her."It's my feeling for you that do scare me sometimes. Like a ...a tide that sweeps all my reason away. Like I'm drowning... It's like somethin' I can't control; a weapon you have, unseen, that can deal me such a deep wound if you command it." She took a ragged breath. "And you do. Not just with Elizabeth, but with your...your.. gruffness; your brooding. Your neglect."

The last two words hit Ross full force and he felt the blow in his stomach. He leaned away from her then, his brow furrowed and his eyes glistening obsidian, and he searched her face. He saw in the depths of her eyes that on some level he did frighten her, but that it was as much for the intensity of passion he instilled in her as it was for his darkness. He opened his mouth but, stunned, he said nothing.

Misinterpreting his silence, Demelza pulled away from him and she hung her head. Ross stared at her, pale and thin, and his heart lurched to see her lingering desolation at the pain he had inflicted.

"I feel like you raised me up," she rushed on, things she had never had the courage to say - her fears - spilling from her; this moment in their marriage seeming pivotal and one that demanded honesty. "But that you could cast me aside at any moment just as easily," she whispered so softly that Ross barely caught the words. "I...I have often wondered why you stayed with me. Maybe out of pity, or honour..."She linked her fingers nervously in her lap, glancing obliquely up at him from beneath long lashes. She had never felt this stripped bare; this vulnerable. Her arms came around to encircle herself in unconscious protection, readying herself for the reciprocal honesty she knew her disclosure would prompt from him.

Ross found his voice at last, his features a frowning mask of incredulity. "Cast you aside?! Pity?! Is that how I have made you feel?" He caught hold of her hands and, when she tried to resist, pulled her forcibly to him and held her tight; his careful handling of her temporarily shattered and he felt like he choked on his own heart.

"Do you still feel I might do such a thing?" He murmured, low and tense, into her hair as he felt her taut and trembling again beneath his hands yet unresponsive to his question. Again, he pulled back, and his burning gaze challenged her to look deep into his heart and see the truth of what lay beating at its core.

"I love you, Demelza," he whispered fiercely. "And not because of guilt, or honour, or pity, or any other transient reason." Ross's sonorous voice remained soft but became agitated as he continued, and he crushed Demelza's fingers in his, unknowingly hurting her. _"_ I love _you: t_ he girl who lived with me for nearly three years and challenged me every day to question the beliefs I was surrounded by. The girl who never let fear crush her spirit or tarnish her soul. The child who blossomed before my eyes from an unsure servant into the formidable, loyal, strong and beautiful woman I see before me now." His black eyes bore into hers. "There is no one else I would wish to share my life with other than you. No one. Tell me you know that, Demelza. Tell me you believe me. _Tell_ me!"

She was wide-eyed as she nodded, fearful of his barely controlled ferocity. "I know that, Ross," she breathed. His cheek clenched as he struggled to bridle his passion, his desperation, and, watching him, Demelza's last, lingering bonds of doubt released their hold on her. "I believe you, Ross," she said again, more levelly. She held his gaze now steadily, her own challenge held there; a faint spark of her old self kindling in the blue-green pools of her eyes.

Seeing it, Ross loosened, his body relaxing from a tension he was unaware of and he eased his grip on her fingers. He smiled abruptly then, softly, and his hands moved to hold her face, and his dark beauty- the within and the without - it took her breath away.

Oh. _Oh._

Demelza's heart suddenly beat wildly against her chest, fuelled as it was by the complex energy of love and fear and desire that she felt for the man at her side. And Ross's heart sped within him, a force abruptly overtaking him; a tide of emotions.

Only on the precipice of loss can the preciousness of life - of living and loving- be unleashed with such desperate urgency, and Ross suddenly pulled his wife into his arms, crushing her body against his, and he kissed her with a frantic, yearning hunger.

For an instant Demelza froze, a gasp of breath catching in her throat and she was scared of his uncontrolled need. Not noticing , his mouth left hers and he traced urgent kisses down her neck, wanting to taste every inch of her skin, to breathe in every part of her.

Then, his lips found hers again and her fear was abruptly gone and she was engulfed in the rough-smooth feel of him against her; the raw incongruity of his tender strength. An ache began to pulse in her stomach; a physical ache, so long denied these past months, scraped out as she had been, but it was coming back to her quickly. Oh yes, it was coming back... Back to them both.

Demelza began to respond to him, his solidity, and her ivory skinned mottled pink with the suffusing colour of arousal. She let him touch her- his fingers sliding around the nape of her neck and sending frissions of longing through her body. And she touched him - her hands climbing him, travelling the firmness of his chest as the awakening within her continued, not new, but remembered.

Ross's hands then slid through the silk of her hair, plunged to the wrists in fire as he cradled her head, and all there became was the kiss.

The kiss.

Soft and hard and deepening. Relief. Urgency. And aching and wanting _Wanting..._ movement that spoke to movement, skin to skin and heat to breath to gasp and...Dear God, how had he had forgotton this! How had he ever thought any woman could evoke anything like this in him! Her sweet eagerness to his salt and musk. The taste and feel of Demelza against his lips, and the _realness - trueness_ \- overwhelmed Ross, and the kiss... the kiss was threatening to become so much more than a kiss, but it couldn't. Not now.

Not yet.

Ross leaned away abruptly; a break, yet close enough that they still breathed each other's rapid breath, and he smiled at the shy blush in her face, bringing his thumb to caress her flushed cheek. Pulling away from Demelza in that instant was one of the hardest things Ross had ever done, but there was something he wanted to do.

"I have something...it's in the library, in my valise with my uniform and other things. It's for you. I'd like to give it to you now."

She smiled at him, not entirely happy that he had withdrawn his caresses, but content that all vexatious subjects had been dealt with for the moment. "You go. I'll be along shortly. I'll just see to the candles..."

* * *

The room was dark when she entered the library. A fire that Ross had lit in the hearth was the only light in the room, the soft amber glow creeping into the gloomy corners and causing the shadows to dance and leap to the tune of the flames. Demelza blinked slowly as her eyes adjusted to the ambient light and she felt a lingering thrill as Ross looked up and smiled in greeting as she approached him.

He sat, a small box in hand, on the cot bed in front of the fire, but rose as she came to stand at the foot of it. He had removed his waistcoat and boots, revealing the white, linen shirt, skilfully patched many times by his wife though he could now afford better, open at the neck.

He said: "My dear, I bought you something while I was away." A faint frown puckered the smoothness of her brow as he took up her hand and placed the box in her upturned palm. His fingers, she noticed, were not as sure of themselves as usual and the apprehension was mirrored in the flickering darkness of his eyes as they watched her closely.

Demelza opened the box and saw a gold filigree brooch like the one Ross had gifted her long ago, but which they had been forced to sell at the height of their desperation.

"I could not get one just like the last..."

A swell closed her throat so that her words came out like a wisp. "It's lovely..." She stared down at the jewel in her hand and her eyes prickled with tears and she drew in a quick, deep breath. She daren't look up, but she heard as he lent and fumbled for something on the coverings of the bed. After a moment, he put some tissue in her hand next to the box. With fingers trembling now too, she unwrapped a necklace of garnets.

"Oh, Ross..." she murmured softly, her voice giving way. "You'll break my heart."

"No, I shall not. Never again." He too inhaled deeply, his eyes glistening in the firelight. "Think of the brooch as payment of a debt long owed, and the necklace as a present. Nothing more."

Demelza was fingering the blood-red jewel as means of distraction from the battle raging in her throat; she wondered that there were any tears left threatening to spill; she had already cried a lifetimes worth this night. Ross then took the brooch and placed it to one side before picking up the necklace.

"See, the catch fastens this way," he said as his arms moved to put it around her neck. She moved the length of her hair over one shoulder as he artfully clasped the necklace, and all the time his eyes never left hers. "There," he murmured as the jewel nestled in the hollow at the base of her porcelain throat. "Perfect." And Ross was not looking at his gift.

Demelza stood there, blinking, barely breathing and her eyes glistened. Her features were soft and her beauty caught in his throat. His hand grazed her fire-warmed cheek, his cool fingers gratefully caressing as he gave them what they yearned for. Her alabaster skin - stone-smooth and perfect... _perfect -_ was flushed and his gaze was vivid, wide, hopeful and piercing. She felt so delicate, so vulnerable beneath his touch ; looks, he had learnt, could be deceiving.

"Demelza...?"

She closed the small gap between them then, and very slowly and very deliberately she kissed him and he knew what it meant:

Forgiveness. Acceptance.

Love.

As her lips broke contact, Ross' fingers reached forward to the ties of his wife's bodice and slowly, excruciatingly, he teased them loose until he was able to remove the garment. The skirts of her dress followed, both lying in a crumpled heap at their feet. Demelza stood in just her muslin shift, the glow from the fire burnishing her hair, her clear eyes dancing with the flames reflected in them. They faced each other like that for a long, drawn out moment, silent, still, and they did not touch.

Then, with a shy half-hesitancy, Demelza stepped out of her under-dress, the amber light catching the milky-white curve of her shoulder and thigh. The blackness of Ross's eyes dilated as he watched her. There was light in her face, there was air and life in her limbs. Her flesh was young and unblemished, even by child bearing. She stood finally with only her skin and Ross's gift to clothe her and again he thought her beautiful.

What filled Ross most then was not desire, but tenderness, and a profound gratitude that he lived, and she did too. That he had found her all those years ago, and then found again as his wife. That he had saved her, as she had him. Finally.

Her flush deepened as she struggled to maintain her composure under his scrutiny and, seeing it, his solemn mouth pulled crookedly up into a half-smile. He caught hold of her hand, her fingers cool in his, and he wordlessly guided her to the little bed in front of the fire where he had spent so many lonely nights.

Ross drew back the coverings and, slipping down until his head lay on a pillow, he took Demelza's uninjured arm, pulling her gently to lie next to him, so close on the cramped mattress but their bodies not touching. They lay on their sides, facing one another snd Ross reached out and trailed his fingers across her cheek. Demelza briefly closed her eyes then, and when she opened them, there was a jolt of eye contact; the pupil-less black sheen of his, and the rich luminescence of hers; depthless; a flint and steel sparking worry and pain, but also strength, and a love now as intense as the bitterness their meeting gaze had once ignited. They stayed like that for a long time, he with his palm cupped to her face, and she grasping his other hand tightly within both of hers, held to her breast, and they devoured the sight of each other.

At last, gently, as if she might break, his fingers left her face and began to trail across her familiar flesh, her limbs. His hands, strong and measured, danced patterns of heat down her neck, her breasts, her stomach. And lower.

Then suddenly the space between them was abolished as he drew her to him, pressing her body against him, his fingers curling around her neck and the curve of her waist as he found her mouth and kissed her with a hunger he had never known before. Blindly, she fumbled with trembling, eager fingers at his clothing, needing there to be nothing, _nothing,_ between them. Demelza sank under Ross's irresistible weight as he lay her down on her back and she grasped at his hair, holding him to her; she breathed his breath, harsh and rapid, and he drank hers in, soft and hitching in her throat.

He leaned away from her then, bracing his arm, his black hair hanging down and his eyes burning with a dark, proprietal intensity as he took in her pale, perfect skin, dappled with firelight.

"Demelza..." His fingers became fire, licking at her skin, kindling a flame in her stomach that lanced downwards. She arched convulsively towards him, her face, shining in the guttering light of the fire, was centred in the unfathomable black of his pupils as he looked at her, and he saw her longing , her vulnerability, her openness.

"You are... beautiful," Ross murmured , smiling softly again at the visible flush that rose in her face. She knew that in that moment there was no one else; no thoughts of another - lingering, encroaching. She filled him- only her- and it was enough. It was enough.

As Ross watched her, exposed, Demelza shivered involuntarily, a breeze touching the growing heat of her nakedness. He moved his fingers, tracing tenderly across her forehead. And then he covered her with his body like a living blanket, and she opened for him, and he filled her, and it did not feel vulnerable or wrong - it felt right. And it was enough...enough...

All lingering uncertainties were gone. The pull was there between them again, like a tide, hot and seeking. Unstoppable. There were lips, slow and sweet and hungry; and skin, hot and smooth and... _together_. Their minds surrendered to their physical need, thoughts becoming fractured until there was nothing but flesh and breath and thundering heartbeats and limbs; limbs wrapped around each other, holding and clutching, abolishing all space - _pointless space-_ , and they were flushed and clammy and vital with life. With love.

Afterwards, breathless and trembling, Ross's heartbeat singing to hers across the softness of flesh, he rested his forehead against hers, the tips of their noses touching, and she ran her fingers through his hair and on down his neck, and further, touching the contours of his raised shoulder and the firmness of his back as he held his full weight off her slim frame. Their eyes drank each other in, and then..., Demelza smiled.

She smiled. A slow, languid unfurling of lips that spread until it dimpled her cheek and glistened in her eyes. It was all her pain, her wariness and uncertainty, melting into light. It was her heart, this smile, and finally, _finally,_ it was for him once more - and the honesty of it, the generosity of it, the intensity, it took his breath away, more even than the joining of their bodies had.

"I love you," she whispered.

"And I you," Ross murmured, overcome, and he dipped down to breathe the words again against her lips.

And the words were bright and heavy, like something they could reach for and hold, so they did.

 **Hope you enjoyed. Please, please review**!


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